Paul J. Scheips

“ In recent years, many if not most of the new workers' songs have come out of the South where the labor unions have not been strong, or from the migratory workers in the Southwest and West who, several years ago, formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL–CIO, under Cesar Chavez. Under the leadership of Chavez the Farm Workers are carrying on the tradition of the Knights of Labor, the British dockers, the Wobblies, and the older AFL–CIO unions, all of whom have told in song of their struggles and hopes for a better life. ”

“ When he transmitted some of the old messages with the Allatoona flag during the jubilee campaign in Chattanooga his audience rose and, led by a choir, "sang 'Hold the Fort' with great spirit." [9]
The Battle of Allatoona was a brief but desperate struggle. With the retreat of the Confederates on the afternoon of 5 October it was accounted a Union victory, and Corse, summoning what humility he could, signaled Sherman: "I am short a cheek bone and one ear, but am able to whip all hell yet." ”

“ With the coming of respectability and even affluence to much of the labor force in the United States, workers do not sing as much as they used to. As Joe Glazer observed several years ago: "When six guys get killed on the job, you may get a song. ”

“ To some men, at least, it made more sense to be militant about wages and working conditions than about a religion that, in its emphasis upon another world, seemed to care little if at all about what happened to men in their own world of bitter struggle. ”

“ In 1876 Moody and Sankey held revival meetings in the Hippodrome in New York City. [79] Early in 1877, shortly after the death of Bliss, the revivalists, refusing to be intimidated by Bostonian culture, carried their evangelism to the Athens of America. Actually, they had been invited by representatives of a number of Boston churches, and a brick tabernacle—said to be "much the smallest, though one of the pleasantest, of the series of great buildings erected for the Moody and Sankey revival meetings"—was built to receive them. ”

“ As the battle is about to begin—three pages before the final curtain—Corse (to whom the work is dedicated) asks Miss Helen Dunbar, the heroine, to retire at once. She does so and the battle is on. When Corse is wounded, the hero asks if the general is dead, to which Corse responds: "No. I am worth a hundred dead men yet, and I'll defend this post." At this juncture, Corse's signal officer reads a signal on Kennesaw Mountain by which Sherman tells Allatoona to "hold on" and "not give up, [for] we are coming to your aid." To this Corse replies: "We have repulsed them twice. ”

“ In the last years of his life Bliss put secular music aside for his all-absorbing gospel music. [36] In 1869 Bliss met Dwight L. Moody, [37] who would soon become the center and driving force of evangelism in the United States. Indeed, in the 1930s Herbert W. Schneider described him as "the greatest of all the evangelists," whose "campaigns in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland between 1857 and 1899 not only influenced millions but also raised revivalistic methods to a somewhat higher plane." [38] In 1870 Bliss met Whittle, with whom he developed a lasting friendship. ”

“ In 1931 Homer A. Rodeheaver, a longtime colleague of Sunday's, published a little book containing historical notes on and suggestions for using gospel songs, one of which was "Hold the Fort" or, as he (and others) called it, "Ho! My Comrades." "Because of its appeal to the bravery of the human race," he said, "men love to sing this song. It is very effective as a challenge song, but in regular congregational singing it is good for men." ”

“ From the mountain, Bliss and Whittle could see Allatoona and were much inspired. After kneeling in prayer they "sang 'Hold the Fort,' looking out upon the distant . . . [Allatoona] , looking up to the clear blue sky, and hoping and almost expecting that Jesus might then appear, so near He seemed to us that April day." Bliss, his friend said, "reckoned it, while he lived, as one of his blessed days, and the memory of it to me . . . will continue to be while life lasts, a transfiguration scene." [43]
Cover of original sheet music edition (1870) of "Hold the Fort!" ”

“ He used what may have been Frankenberry's old signal flag (after borrowing it from the Adjutant General of Pennsylvania) , perhaps the very one that got Corse on the road to Allatoona or that encouraged the garrison to hang on. Round also had with him a small flag that he had used while standing on the dome of the state capitol at Raleigh, North Carolina, and sending what he believed was the last message of the Civil War: "Peace on earth, good will to men." ”

“ There was, however, a somewhat profane Boston journalist—I. A. M. Cumming, as he styled himself—who covered the revival meetings for "the spiciest paper in New England," the Boston Sunday Times (circulation 60,000) , and then published a collection of his revival pieces under the title Tabernacle Sketches, with illustrations by an equally irreverent artist named Haskell. [83] Cumming claimed that Sankey had first realized his powers of song one night on the western prairies when he frightened off a band of Apaches, who were about to attack his party, by striking up "What Shall the Harvest Be?" ”

“ Also seeking to influence affairs as the nineteenth century advanced were the militant ladies of the woman's-rights movement, who particularly urged woman suffrage but who also pressed temperance and other radical ideas upon reluctant male politicians, some of whom professed to fear that the vote would unsex womanhood. Or so it was said during the 1890 debates over the admission of Wyoming, which had had woman suffrage since 1869. [113] Under the circumstances, the ladies turned to song to keep their spirits up and to plead their case. ”

“ By 1890 much of the strength of the movement lay in the great wheat-growing sections of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. The party itself disintegrated after a few years because it lost its leading issue of free silver to the Democrats and suffered from racism, xenophobia, and a largely rhetorical support of labor. ”

“ In Allatoona, a Play in Four Acts, by Samuel H. M. Byers, the heroine, Miss Laura Gillford, who has learned signaling with her "berry girls," substitutes for Sherman's signal officer, who is "dead at his post." Calling Allatoona for Sherman, Laura receives the message that "Corse—is—here!" The battle rages fiercely with the enemy's 5,000 men (there were actually only somewhat more than three-fifths of this number) pressing Corse from all sides. ”

“ One of the most memorable events of the author's school days was a chapel program presented by Sunday and Rodeheaver at Central High School, Evansville, Indiana, sometime between the fall of 1927 and the spring of 1931. Billy Sunday, his natty attire accented by spats, drove home an evangelical point by leaping onto a table while Rodeheaver made the rafters ring with his sliding trombone. ”

“ It was almost impossible to get out of the reach of these holy, heavenly melodies. The hearts of the old and young were filled with them. [70]
In Canada, about the time that Moody and Sankey returned to America, Tommy Dodd, "the greatest drunkard and wife-beater in Yorkville," was persuaded to leave the saloon for the church by hearing a carpenter and his apprentice sing "Hold the Fort." The song may have reached Canada only a short time before, with the first (1875) edition of Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs. ”

“ One of these has the not very original title "Our Suffrage Song," while the other has the equally unoriginal title "Hold the Fort!" [116]
Of all the reform movements in the United States in the late nineteenth century none was more remarkable than the Populist movement that spawned the People's Party. This grew, primarily, out of severe agrarian discontent that first manifested itself organizationally in alliances of farmers who united against the railroads, bankers, manufacturers, and merchants. ”

“ Although a claim based upon his wound at Vicksburg was approved in 1900, efforts to persuade a tightfisted and coldhearted Pension Bureau to approve payments at a higher rate were apparently fruitless, despite the efforts of such influential friends as President William McKinley, Major General Howard, and John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia merchant. Poor in worldly goods, the major went to his reward the next year. ”

“ He sang "Hold the Fort" for and with a group of Rubber Workers at the December 1967 convention of the AFL–CIO at Bal Harbour, Florida. Union members, Joe Glazer has observed, may not remember all the words but they always can and do sing the chorus. [156]
"Hold the Fort" has a fixed place in the musical firmament. In the opinion of Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer, the surviving labor version is "much better" than the version of the old Knights of Labor and is one of only a handful of complete songs of its genre that have survived from the previous century. ”

“ Labor's modern version of "Hold the Fort" thus achieved a place among the labor songs of the United States and continued to be published and heard despite the mortal illness of the Wobblies. It is said that the song was popularized (or perhaps repopularized) during the Paterson silk strike in 1928. [143] Its words and music appeared in the Rebel Song Book, which the Rand School Press published in 1935. About four years later several verses and the chorus came out in a songbook published by the Southeastern Regional Office of the Textile Workers Union of America. ”

“ After Bliss's death, Whittle continued his evangelism, with James McGranahan replacing his old friend Bliss as the major's gospel singer. [48] Whittle also continued his relationship with Moody, under whose auspices he had begun his evangelistic work. For some years he maintained his home in Northfield, Massachusetts, where Moody founded the Northfield Seminary and the Mount Hermon School for boys and held annual religious conferences. In addition to his preaching, Whittle wrote a number of gospel songs, generally under the pseudonym "El Nathan." ”

“ One of them read: "Sherman is moving in force. Hold out." The second one read: "General Sherman says hold fast. We are coming." [3] The third message, unsigned in the official published version, bore the initial of the signal officer on Kennesaw Mountain, according to the recollection of John Q. Adams, who as a second lieutenant had been in charge of the signal station where it was received on 5 October "before it became too hot for signaling." As published, this third message read: "Tell Allatoona hold on. General Sherman says he is working hard for you." ”

“ Paul Dresser—presumably the famous songsmith who was Theodore Dreiser's brother and who wrote, among other songs, "On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away" and "My Gal Sal"—wrote a poem or song about "The Lone Grave." ”

“ In 1875, in London alone, according to one report, they held 285 meetings that were attended "by fully 2,500,000 people," but perhaps 1,500,000 Londoners is a better estimate, for Bernard A. Weisberger says that "the attendance figures were not exactly marvels of statistical accuracy." ”

“ The formal title of this (15th) edition of "The Little Red Song Book" is the same as that of the 14th edition, cited as Songs of the Workers in note 129, above.
132. For complete words see Songs of the Workers (15th edition, 1919) , pp. 16–17. Verses are quoted by permission of Industrial Workers of the World, Carl Keller, general secretary-treasurer, Chicago, Illinois. ”

“ On "We Shall Overcome," see "The Talk of the Town" in The New Yorker, vol. 41 (27 March 1965) , pp. 37–38, and the recording by Joan Baez (with commentary by Harry Fleischman, together with the words) in the United Automobile Workers album This Land Is Your Land: Songs of Social Justice (produced in 1964 by Joel O'Brien Productions, Inc., and UAW education department) , no. 9. For the words and music of the labor version, "We Will Overcome," together with historical notes, see Fowke and Glazer, Songs of Work and Freedom, pp. 33–34.
153. Letter, Glazer to Scheips, 2 December 1959. ”

“ Never men were truer! [105]
Not showing much originality in either songs or issues, the Republican Congressional Committee used the same song, under the title "Victory Is Sure," during the Garfield campaign of 1880 by merely substituting "Garfield-Arthur" for "Hayes and Wheeler." [106] Similarly, it also used "Round Our Banner," another song to the tune of "Hold the Fort" from the 1876 campaign. ”

“ Fowke and Glazer, Songs of Work and Freedom, p. 37.
123. Norman J. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895: A Study in Democracy (1929) , pp. 68–69.
124. Ware, Labor Movement in United, pp. xi, 66, 371–373.
125. Among the many writings on Joe Hill are Philip S. Foner's The Case of Joe Hill (1965) , a highly sympathetic account that lists articles, plays, poems, and other items about Hill, some of which are unfavorable; and the same author's edition of The Letters of Joe Hill (1965) and his History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 4, pp. 151–155, 455 (note) . ”

“ Judson Kilpatrick and J. Owen Moore, Allatoona, an Historical and Military Drama in Five Acts (acting edition; "French's Standard Drama," No. 376 [1875] ) , p. 46.
19. Samuel H. M. Byers, Allatoona, a Play in Four Acts (1905) , p. 62 and following pages.
20. Memoirs of Philip P. Bliss, edited by D. W. Whittle (1877) , pp. 68–70. Substantially the same account has been published in a number of places; see, for example, the historical note on the sheet music cited in note 30, below, and Ira D. Sankey, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns and of Sacred Songs and Solos (1907) , pp. 168–170. ”

“ Sung by Elizabeth Knight accompanied on the guitar by Sol Julty, Folkways Record Album No. FH 5281 (1958) , with notes by Irwin Silber on "A Brief History of the Woman's Suffrage Movement."
115. Compare "Columbia's Daughters" in "Songs of the Suffragettes" with "Hark! The Sound of Myriad Voices" in Booklet of Song, A Collection of Suffrage and Temperance Melodies, compiled by L. May Wheeler (1884) , no. 1, pp. 20–21, from which the first verse and chorus are quoted.
116. Booklet of Song, pp. 21–22 ”